[Report 1900] / Medical Officer of Health, Northumberland County Council.

  • Northumberland (England). County Council.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1900] / Medical Officer of Health, Northumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/56 (page 6)
    The necessity of every sanitary authority providing an isolation hospital has been again brought prominently forward by numerous cases of smallpox occurring in different sanitary districts of this county, by a visitation of typhus fever in the rural district of Castle Ward, and in the urban district of Hexham; by an outbreak of bubonic plague in Glasgow, and in this county by numerous cases of scarlatina, diptheria, and enteric fever. Some of the districts without any isolation accommodation having provided cases of one or more of the three last named diseases during ten or eleven months of the year. The following sanitary districts have isolation hospital accommodation :— Urban Districts—Alnwick, Bedlingtonshire, Berwick-on-Tweed, Blyth, Cowpen, Cramlington, Earsdon, Gosfortli (tent only), Hexham, Morpeth, Rothbury, Seghill, Tynemouth, Walker, Wallsend, and Willington Quay. jRural Districts—Belford (2 tents), Rothbury, and Tynemouth No. 2 (tents), and wooden hospital, 4 beds. The amount of hospital accommodation available for infectious diseases is as follows :—Alnwick 6 beds and 6 cots, say 8 beds ; Bedlingtonshire 10 beds ; Berwick-on-Tweed 8 beds; Blyth and Cowpen, 18 beds (besides 6 beds usually sufficient for the use of the Blyth Port Sanitary Authority), and an unfur¬ nished building, capable of accommodating 16 patients ; Cramlington 12beds; Earsdon 12 beds; Gosforth 8 beds (tents); Hexham urban 12 beds; Morpeth urban 22 beds; Rothbury, 4 beds, available for either urban or rural district; Seghill 8 beds; Tynemouth urban 10 beds; Walker (in City Hospital), say 9 beds; Wallsend and Willington Quay* joint hospital, 29 beds ; Belford rural (2 tents), 6 beds; Tynemouth rural No. 2 (tents) 16 beds, and wooden hospital, 4 beds. The number of cases treated in these institutions during the year was 127, distributed as follows :—Bedlingtonshire 5 ; Berwick-on-Tweed 1; Blyth 1; Cowpen 8; Cramlington 1; Rothbury 3; Tynemouth 53; Walker 9; Wallsend 22 ; Willington Quay 24. The population of the 19 sanitary districts possessing isolation hospitals, or having made arrangements for the use of isolation hospitals provided by neighbouring districts, is 219,692, and the number of beds (supposing 9 to be available in the City Hospital, for patients from Walker) is 202, giving an average of 1 bed for every 1,087 persons The population of the 16 sanitary districts having no arrangements for the isolation of infectious diseases is 169,409. Disinfection. Up to- the end of the year 1900, only one sanitary authority in the county had provided a steam disinfector with which mattresses, bedding, clothing, and other articles, which would be damaged by the action of boiling water, could be efficiently disinfected after use by patients: suffering from infec¬ tious disease. Also almost without an exception, no sanitary authority had any mechanical appliance for spraying or in other ways disinfecting the ceilings, and walls of rooms, or schoolrooms, or of ashpits known to have received infective evacuations. The results of this failure by sani¬ tary authorities to provide means for efficient disinfection, are serious and far-reaching—not only has compensation to be given for bedding, and clothing, etc. destroyed, but what is of far greater importance, efficient disinfection cannot in many instances, under existing conditions, be earned out, and a fresh outbreak results. I wish to take this opportunity of again thanking the various Medical Officers of Health, Surveyors, and Inspectors, for the information and assistance they have at all times placed at my disposal. I am, gentlemen, Your obedient servant, J. W. Hembrough.